Australia may have misrepresented itself…

...Weather-wise, at least. As I write this, I'm huddled up on the sofa in sweat pants and sweat shirt, draped in a blanket, with a space heater pointing directly at me. It's not yet winter and already getting out of bed in the morning and exposing myself to the cold air is a daily psychological struggle. 

In Sydney the night temperatures drop to the 40s (Fahrenheit). Even the nights at Ayers Rock, a monolith sprouting from scrub in the middle of the continent where the sun regularly cooks the air to 100 degrees during summer, have crept down into the 30s.

Now, I know what all my brethren in the northeastern United States are saying: Oh, that's nothing, it drops below freezing here and we get dumped on by blizzards. Duly noted, but you also have indoor heating. That's right -- most housing in Sydney has neither air conditioning nor heating. This would be explicable if cold nights and chilly days were rare, but they're not. Fall and its lower temperatures came in late March and we won't get much relief until September or October. Space heaters do a brisk business.

On my walk to the bus stop in the morning I often see wetsuit-clad surfers, carrying their boards, on their way down to the water. Crazy, I think to myself. They all swear the water is warmer than the air, which it probably is, but I just don't have the willpower to throw myself from a dry cold environment into a watery not-quite-as-cold one. I'm happy to wait for summer to roll around again before jumping in the ocean.

The only solution is to reverse the migration direction of America's snow birds, the legions of mostly retired citizens who decamp to Florida during winter. In Australia's case, you'd have to drive some 1,500 miles north to Cairns or thereabouts, where temperatures are a balmy 80.

Perhaps this wouldn't be so unpleasant if it wasn't so unexpected. Before moving from New York, I got rid of my winter coat. I was going to Australia, you don't need coats there! Obviously I didn't do much homework, but I'm going to put some blame on the Australian tourism office. The A$180 million "So Where the Bloody Hell are You" tourism campaign from a few years ago -- which turned out, on analysis, to have decreased tourism from some countries -- prominently featured blue skies, stunning beaches, turquoise waters, kangaroos, and hot chicks in bikinis. In other words, they suggested this was paradise. It's pretty damn good, I'll grant, but paradise isn't cold six months a year.

"At home in front of a space heater."

The one benefit of the colder weather is that Sharon and I don't feel obligated to spend every sunny day by the water, soaking up the beach culture. Instead, we're exploring more of Sydney's neighborhoods, scoping out new restaurants, bars, and shops (including the coolest butcher shop I've ever seen, Victor Churchill). Still, I'll be spending three weeks out of the next eight in the U.S., where it will be summer. I'm pretty pumped.

Victoria Barracks

I've passed it countless times riding a bus to and from central Sydney: a long sandstone wall extending for several hundred meters, interrupting the boutiques and cafes of Oxford Street. Behind this wall sits the Victoria Barracks, built in the 1840s to house British troops keeping the peace. The barracks are, remarkably, still in use, though their purpose has changed from troop housing to administrative offices for the army. That this huge complex sits in Paddington, a ritzy neighborhood where townhouses sell for $5 million plus, is all the more remarkable.



The one building you're allowed to photograph -- initally the main barracks and now administrative offices.

 

One way or another I found out there are tours of the Barracks on Thursdays and Sundays, so Sharon and I decided to go check it out this past Sunday. We arrived at noon and immediately found out the tours are now held only on Thursdays, which doesn't do much good for people with regular jobs. And except for the main building, photos were not allowed, lest someone have evil intentions. We were welcome to visit the museum, however, which only costs $2 per person.

We walked through the carefully groomed grounds to the museum, a large, single room with a number of display cases. This room had once been the exercise yard for convicts held in the barracks jail; a roof had only been added in the last few decades. The display cases guided us through the relatively short military history of Australia, starting with the British garrisons and finishing with World War II.

Photo of the original barracks. That's Oxford Street on the left.

Attached to this main room and also open to the public were a number of original jail cells, a toilet (just a small room where you'd bring a bucket), and a bath (another small room that had once been lined with lead to hold in the water -- not good for your health).



Original jail cell.

The museum also has a large collection of military medals, including a "Victoria Cross". This medal was created by Queen Victoria in 1856 to honor those who served with valor in the Crimean War and is considered the highest military honor achievable in the UK and Commonwealth countries. It's supposedly made from the metal of cannons captured from the Russians at Sebastopol during the war. It's still awarded -- a couple elite Australian soldiers serving in Afganistan have recently gotten the medal. We also learned that they are extremely popular with collectors: the record for a Victoria Cross at auction is 400,000 pounds.

Apparently this guy was a work horse; he's got tons of medals.

We ended up chatting with the two men staffing the museum. One told us about the Battle of Hamel -- a fight to capture a French town during World War I in which American troops served with Australian troops. The commander leading the attack was an Australian, marking the first time American troops served under a foreign leader. (And an American won the first Medal of Honor to be awarded during World War I: Corporal Thomas Pope rushed a machine gun nest with just a revolver, captured it, and held it until reinforcements arrived.)

In a "It's a small world" surprise, it turned out the other guy has a daughter who attended the same university I did. She graduated just about the same time I started.

Overall, it's probably not worth a special trip. But if you're in the area already it's not a bad way to spend 30 minutes. I'm sure war buffs would really enjoy it. If you would like to call to verify the tour schedule for Thursday, the number is (02) 8335 5330.

Pound v. Gram and Other Challenges

Sharon and I always say Australia is like the love child of England and America, culturally speaking. We see the DNA of both cultures here. So, coming from the States, things are familiar, but just different enough to throw you off occasionally. One of the subtler changes I experienced is shopping for groceries.

My first solo trip to the grocery store found me at the deli counter. I ordered a 1/3 of a pound of turkey. The deli person looked at me blankly and I remembered Australia uses the metric system. I quickly tried to calculate in my head how to order metrically. My mind went through the paces: 1 kilogram is equal to 2.2 pounds…let's just round that down and say a kilogram is twice as heavy, so I should cut the order in half from pounds to kilos… okay, I'm good. "I'll take 1/6 of a kilo of turkey," I said. Confusion still hung in the hair.

A native Aussie woman took pity on me. "You should order 300 grams," she said. She turned out to be right and I've been ordering 300 grams ever since, which I find amusing since the only time grams is mentioned in the U.S. is in the context of a drug bust.

The differences in measurement confounded me again when I went to buy fish. "$39.99/kg" it read. Holy crap, I thought, I can't afford to buy fish at that price. Then I remembered to convert it, which made it about $18/lb which is on par with New York City prices.

And I don't know any brands. When it came to buying peanut butter, I went for Kraft, thinking that as a multinational conglomerate their peanut butter would be suitably over-processed, indestructible, and delicious, just like good old Skippy or Jiffy back home.

This ignorance extends to clothing. 29 years of brand exposure went down the drain when I moved here. If I need a pair of slacks for work, what's a quality brand? What's just overpriced hype? You take for granted that this sort of knowledge is actually useful. Here's to learning all over again!